89 Members of Congress Ask Bush to Explain Memo

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 11:41am

So far CNN and the LA Times have covered these documents, which prove that the White House made a secret decision to dump Saddam Hussein a year before the attack, then set out to falsify intelligence to mislead the nation.

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Bush asked to explain UK war memo

Thursday, May 12, 2005 Posted: 2:49 AM EDT (0649 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Eighty-nine Democratic members of the U.S. Congress last week sent President George W. Bush a letter asking for explanation of a secret British memo that said "intelligence and facts were being fixed" to support the Iraq war in mid-2002.

The timing of the memo was well before the president brought the issue to Congress for approval.

The Times of London newspaper published the memo -- actually minutes of a high-level meeting on Iraq held July 23, 2002 -- on May 1.

British officials did not dispute the document's authenticity, and Michael Boyce, then Britain's Chief of Defense Staff, told the paper that Britain had not then made a decision to follow the United States to war, but it would have been "irresponsible" not to prepare for the possibility.

The White House has not yet responded to queries about the congressional letter, which was released on May 6.

The letter, initiated by Rep. John Conyers, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, said the memo "raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own administration..."

"While various individuals have asserted this to be the case before, including Paul O'Neill, former U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Richard Clarke, a former National Security Council official, they have been previously dismissed by your administration," the letter said.

But, the letter said, when the document was leaked Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman called it "nothing new."

In addition to Blair, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, Attorney General Peter Goldsmith, MI6 chief Richard Dearlove and others attended the meeting.

A British official identified as "C" said that he had returned from a meeting in Washington and that "military action was now seen as inevitable" by U.S. officials.

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

"The NSC had no patience with the U.N. route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

The memo further discussed the military options under consideration by the United States, along with Britain's possible role.

It quoted Hoon as saying the United States had not finalized a timeline, but that it would likely begin "30 days before the U.S. congressional elections," culminating with the actual attack in January 2003.

"It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided," the memo said.

"But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

The British officials determined to push for an ultimatum for Saddam to allow U.N. weapons inspectors back into Iraq to "help with the legal justification for the use of force ... despite U.S. resistance."

Britain's attorney general, Peter Goldsmith, advised the group that "the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action" and two of three possible legal bases -- self-defense and humanitarian intervention -- could not be used.

The third was a U.N. Security Council resolution, which Goldsmith said "would be difficult."

Blair thought that "it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the U.N. inspectors."

"If the political context were right, people would support regime change," the memo said.

Later, the memo said, Blair would work to convince Bush that they should pursue the ultimatum with Saddam even though "many in the U.S. did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/11/britain.war.memo/index.html

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 11:48am

Here's the LA Times article:

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Indignation Grows in U.S. Over British Prewar Documents
Critics of Bush call them proof that he and Blair never saw diplomacy as an option with Hussein.
By John Daniszewski
Times Staff Writer

May 12, 2005

LONDON — Reports in the British press this month based on documents indicating that President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair had conditionally agreed by July 2002 to invade Iraq appear to have blown over quickly in Britain.

But in the United States, where the reports at first received scant attention, there has been growing indignation among critics of the Bush White House, who say the documents help prove that the leaders made a secret decision to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein nearly a year before launching their attack, shaped intelligence to that aim and never seriously intended to avert the war through diplomacy.

The documents, obtained by Michael Smith, a defense specialist writing for the Sunday Times of London, include a memo of the minutes of a meeting July 23, 2002, between Blair and his intelligence and military chiefs; a briefing paper for that meeting and a Foreign Office legal opinion prepared before an April 2002 summit between Blair and Bush in Texas.

The picture that emerges from the documents is of a British government convinced of the U.S. desire to go to war and Blair's agreement to it, subject to several specific conditions.

Since Smith's report was published May 1, Blair's Downing Street office has not disputed the documents' authenticity. Asked about them Wednesday, a Blair spokesman said the report added nothing significant to the much-investigated record of the lead-up to the war.

"At the end of the day, nobody pushed the diplomatic route harder than the British government…. So the circumstances of this July discussion very quickly became out of date," said the spokesman, who asked not to be identified.

The leaked minutes sum up the July 23 meeting, at which Blair, top security advisors and his attorney general discussed Britain's role in Washington's plan to oust Hussein. The minutes, written by Matthew Rycroft, a foreign policy aide, indicate general thoughts among the participants about how to create a political and legal basis for war. The case for military action at the time was "thin," Foreign Minister Jack Straw was characterized as saying, and Hussein's government posed little threat.

Labeled "secret and strictly personal — U.K. eyes only," the minutes begin with the head of the British intelligence service, MI6, who is identified as "C," saying he had returned from Washington, where there had been a "perceptible shift in attitude. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and [weapons of mass destruction]. But the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy."

Straw agreed that Bush seemed determined to act militarily, although the timing was not certain.

"But the case was thin," the minutes say. "Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capacity was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

Straw then proposed to "work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam" to permit United Nations weapons inspectors back into Iraq. "This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force," he said, according to the minutes.

Blair said, according to the memo, "that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the U.N. inspectors."

"If the political context were right, people would support regime change," Blair said. "The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work."

In addition to the minutes, the Sunday Times report referred to a Cabinet briefing paper that was given to participants before the July 23 meeting. It stated that Blair had already promised Bush cooperation earlier, at the April summit in Texas.

"The U.K. would support military action to bring about regime change," the Sunday Times quoted the briefing as saying.

Excerpts from the paper, which Smith provided to the Los Angeles Times, said Blair had listed conditions for war, including that "efforts had been made to construct a coalition/shape public opinion, the Israel-Palestine crisis was quiescent," and options to "eliminate Iraq's WMD through the U.N. weapons inspectors" had been exhausted.

The briefing paper said the British government should get the U.S. to put its military plans in a "political framework."

"This is particularly important for the U.K. because it is necessary to create the conditions in which we could legally support military action," it says.

In a letter to Bush last week, 89 House Democrats expressed shock over the documents. They asked if the papers were authentic and, if so, whether they proved that the White House had agreed to invade Iraq months before seeking Congress' OK.

"If the disclosure is accurate, it raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of our own administration," the letter says.

"While the president of the United States was telling the citizens and the Congress that they had no intention to start a war with Iraq, they were working very close with Tony Blair and the British leadership at making this a foregone conclusion," the letter's chief author, Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, said Wednesday.

If the documents are real, he said, it is "a huge problem" in terms of an abuse of power. He said the White House had not yet responded to the letter.

Both Blair and Bush have denied that a decision on war was made in early 2002. The White House and Downing Street maintain that they were preparing for military operations as an option, but that the option to not attack also remained open until the war began March 20, 2003.

In January 2002, Bush described Iraq as a member of an "axis of evil," but the sustained White House push for Iraqi compliance with U.N. resolutions did not come until September of that year. That month, Bush addressed the U.N. General Assembly to outline a case against Hussein's government, and he sought a bipartisan congressional resolution authorizing the possible use of force.

In November 2002, the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution demanding that Iraq readmit weapons inspectors.

An effort to pass a second resolution expressly authorizing the use of force against Iraq did not succeed.
Indignation Grows in U.S. Over British Prewar Documents

[Rose_MacShane]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 11:52am

Why is this less impeachable than getting a BJ in office?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 11:54am

Because the Republicans control the legislature. If the succeed in takming over the judiciary, it will be the end of checks-and-balances and the 2-party system.

[bwaysinger]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 11:55am

I'd like to bring up how many times they've tried to get Bush to offer testimony under oath. Has he ever done it? Nope. Clinton was stupid for going under oath.
That said, Bush doesn't need to be put under the microscope for this through efforts to get him to testify under oath. If every Republican congressman weren't a party-line toe-er and Democrats weren't shaking in their boots at scaring their fundamentalist constituents who believe God put Bush in the White House, we might be getting somewhere.

[Plum]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 12:25pm

What the heck? Democrats in Congress have actually been remarkably united about most issues; the Republicans have been a little more shaky at the edges, but they still have the majority. The Democrats are a weak party in several ways, but voting unity isn't really one of them. And I honestly think they're getting better.

Republicans had the majority in both houses during the whole Lewinsky thing, didn't they? And Ken Starr, too. If you're saying Democrats aren't as good as Republicans at partisan hounding, yeah, I'll give you that, but they also don't have the advantages the Republicans did in the Clinton Administration.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 1:36pm

As I have felt since we first heard that this war was based on lies, if this is true, Bush MUST be impeached.

I tell you what though---2006 is going to be one heck of a wake up call.

[Plum]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 1:39pm

I would be absolutely shocked if Bush got anywhere near being impeached. If even a wacko Representative talked about it I'd be surprised. Bush's power has declined since its peak and is still going down, but he's still the unquestioned leader of his party, and his party controls all the branches of government.

[jrb_actor]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 1:48pm

yes, but 2006 is JUST around the corner...

But, seriously, I hear ya---I'll give Shrubya credit--no matter what terrible, abominable things this man has done, he has become President, stayed in office, and avoided impeachment.

Let's just see if he's as lucky avoiding HELL.

[Plum]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 1:55pm

Hee. That reminded me of Nurse Roberts in Scrubs.

"Sweetheart, you don't have to explain yourself to me. But you'd better get your story straight when you come face-to-face with Jesus."

[TxTwoStep]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 2:58pm

i remember quite a while ago when the NY Times ran a story on this memo and its' import. Then the whole story just went away. Glad to see it's back.

[WindyCityActor]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 3:32pm

Forget asking Congress to push on this....you need to get the families of the causalties of the war to shame Bush into explaining.

It's was the families of the victims of 911 that got that commission up and going. Otherwise, nothing would have happened.

It's a said state of affairs...but don't depend on the government to monitor itself anymore.

[Elphaba]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 3:34pm

and the half of America that did NOT vote for Bush would to know what the hell he's doing??????

[Plum]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 3:35pm

WindyCityActor, that's two different constituencies you're talking about. The families of 9/11 victims were mostly from overwhelmingly Democratic New York City- of course they didn't hesitate to poke at the Bush administration, and poke hard. The families of fallen soldiers...well, I'm guessing there's a whole lot more Bush voters in that group. It's not the same situation.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 3:36pm

This is why we have to raise our voices loudly. If they control the executive, legislative and judiciary branches and they have effectively silenced the press, we are no longer living in a democracy.

Our loud voices are the last resort of a nation sinking into dictatorship.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 4:46pm

And he's the indomitable Helen Thomas, in her column for Hearst Newspapers:

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Credibility no longer counts

May 12, 2005

WASHINGTON — Funny thing about America and Great Britain. I once thought their people cared about the credibility — and accountability of their leaders — especially when it comes to war and peace. But now I note with regret that the voters in both nations have other priorities.

We're talking about the fact that the leaders of both nations chose to invade Iraq for flimsy reasons that were deliberately drummed up to convince their people that a third-world country was a threat to them. Didn't the Brits say Saddam Hussein could attack in 45 minutes?

The historic election of Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair for a third term is a stunning affirmation that the British people no longer demand credibility from their leaders.

The false rationales for war by both Bush and Blair went up in smoke without a public outcry. I know Blair returns to power with a much smaller majority in the House of Commons — compared with his landslide victories in the past — apparently because of British disillusionment with the war. He also is hearing post-election calls from within his own Labor Party for him to step down. But still, he was re-elected.

In the case of President Bush, the ill-advised war against Iraq did not take center stage in the presidential election last November. His opponent, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., had voted for the war and delivered a coup de grace to himself by saying he would have done the same thing — invade Iraq, even after it had become apparent to all that the pretext for the invasion — Saddam Hussein's imaginary weapons of mass destruction — was a mirage. Kerry blew it big time.

The war issue became irrelevant at that point, not that it was highlighted in any major way by the timid Democrats, who should have knocked it out of the park.

Instead, they were afraid of being accused of not supporting the troops. Nonsense. They could have kept more Americans alive — nearly 1,600 Americans are dead now and thousands wounded — by calling for a military withdrawal from Iraq.

The Democrats also should have rejected the Bush policy of preemptive war, which is illegal under international law.

Instead the administration won the day by, among other things, encouraging the outrageous fabricators known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to denigrate Kerry's Vietnam War record. What a fiasco, especially when you know that none of the highly eligible Bush team went to that war. Our present commander in chief went to elaborate lengths to avoid doing so.

The record to date, by leaks and memos, is overwhelming on both Bush and Blair. For some unexplained motive, Bush obviously wanted a war and Blair wanted to be a player.

Iraq was on Bush's radar screen when he took office in 2001, perhaps even before. Books by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke, former head of counter terrorism at the White House's National Security Council, both attest to early signs — even before 9-11 — that war against Iraq was high on Bush's agenda.

In the run up to the war, Vice President Dick Cheney and then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice used appearances on Sunday television shows and in speeches to friendly audiences to start the drumbeat that Iraq had unconventional weapons.

Meantime, Blair was doing his share to build public support for war, even though he knew that his case was thin.

As the British re-election campaign was ending, the May 1 Sunday Times of London published a secret U.K. government memorandum discussing a July 23, 2002, meeting between Blair and his top security advisers. The memo said that military action against Iraq "was seen as inevitable" and that Bush wanted to remove Saddam "through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD," weapons of mass destruction.

According to the Times, the memo said that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

The report was not disavowed by the British government. At the time of the memo, Bush officials were insisting they had no plans to attack Iraq.

I am not surprised at the duplicity. But I am astonished at the acceptance of this deception by voters in the U.S. and the U.K.

I've seen two American presidents go down the drain — Lyndon B. Johnson on Vietnam and Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal — because they were no longer believed. But times change — and I guess our values do, too.

Helen Thomas is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers.
Credibility no longer counts

[Plum]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 4:50pm

PJ, it's a lot easier for those of us going through a thread if you just post an excerpt and a link rather than entire articles.

Okay, mostly it would just be easier for me, but I doubt I'm the only one who feels that way.

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 5/12/05 at 5:02pm

I think Pal Joey is mainly trying to avoid the tyoes of confusion we saw yesterdat.